Africa Eco Race, Stage 10: Hot Racing Through The Dunes

[advrider]

The Africa Eco Race really put its riders through the ringer today, on a stage that was all sand and dunes, with temperatures as high as 50 Celsius (122 Farenheit). And yet, at the end, most riders made it through the day, and some seemed to actually be happy about the whole ordeal.

At end of the stage, Stefan Svitko said “It was the most beautiful special stage of my career in cross-country rallies! A dream for any motorbike rider!” Uh, maybe he was suffering from heat exhaustion? Or maybe he just felt the high you get from an epic accomplishment, and it sounds like finishing the day was just that. He won the stage, more than seven minutes ahead of Maurizio Gerini, with Pal Anders Ullevalseter in third. Pol Tarres and then Xavier Flick made up the top five.

Those guys have mostly made up the front-runners every day, along with Robbie Wallance and Alessandro Botturi. There seems to be less chance of a rider coming from the back of the pack for a surprise win, as happens at Dakar. With only one real factory team (Yamaha), that’s no surprise.

Of course, rally raid is just as much about the people behind the top 10 as it is about the front—people living out their dream to race in the desert. As the race’s news for today puts it:

On this unforgiving stage, there are some riders worthy of particular note, like the Frenchman Stéphane Grignac who accompanied the rider Francesca Gasperi all day long. In tears at the finish, the Italian rider admitted that without him, she would never have finished. They finished respectively 19th and 20th. Hats off also to Laurent Cochet who also came back to the race after two days at the back of the rally. The French motorcycle journalist went all the way to the finish, accompanied by two other riders, namely Damien Derocq who, at 49 years of age, is taking part in his first Cross Country Rally and also the Belgian Jean Louis Blanpain who was returning to the Africa Eco Race after retiring with a serious injury a few years ago. All three encouraged each other and managed to make it out of the Mauritanian furnace. That is the spirit of the Africa Eco Race!

Good for them. They’re where they want to be, racing to Dakar, like the heroes of old, in the glory days of cigarette sponsorships and big-bore desert bikes and sketchy navigation and all the other fun that came in the early days of rally raid.

Stage 10 Scratch

Etape 10 OUAD NAGA / OUAD NAGA
Classement sur Secteur Sélectif 10 – 456,04 km – 28/10/2022		44 concurrent(s) classé(s)

Overall standings after Stage 10

Etape 10 OUAD NAGA / OUAD NAGA
Classement Général – 28/10/2022		36 concurrent(s) classé(s)

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